1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method, system and computer program product for notifying a user of recently received e-mails while away from the display connected to the computer.
2. Discussion of the Background
With the proliferation of less expensive computers and connection costs, an increasing number of people are staying connected through e-mail. Several Internet standards cover various techniques for sending, receiving, and forwarding e-mails. Two such techniques are the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and the Post Office Protocol (POP). Those techniques are described in (1) STD0010 and (2) STD0053, RFC 1939, RFC1957, and RFC2449, respectively, available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html. The contents of those STDs and RFCs are incorporated herein by reference.
Although e-mail communications are effectively delivered in an office environment where a user is often at his/her desk, e-mail communication is less effective for users at home since a user may be in a different part of the house than the computer. Accordingly, users frequently go back to their machine to check if an awaited e-mail has arrived yet. This may result in wasted trips to the computer and increased anxiety over whether the e-mail has been received.
Some users have turned to wireless communication services to forward e-mails to them when they are not near their computers. One such communication service uses two-way pagers and the SkyWriter paging service from SkyTel, a division of MCI WorldCom Company. (Details of the SkyWriter service can be found at www.skytel.com.) Although a user's e-mail can be sent to the pager using the SkyWriter service, one significant drawback is that the service is provided in exchange for a monthly fee. Such a network supporting such a fee-based service for multiple members of the public will be referred to hereinafter as a “commercial, public network.”